TAIL IN JAIL

Crime in Strpci and Montenegrin Authorities

AIM Podgorica, 29 October 1996

Some time ago, state Radio-Television Montenegro, in its central news program, instead of the customary shots of a new pre-election accomplishment of the ruling party, published a statement in which Montenegrin police informed the public that it had solved the mystery of the train no. 671 and the railway station in Strpci. After three years and eight months, relatives of twenty kidnapped passengers at the railway station Strpci were informed that that their closest dear ones had been - killed.

The competent service, not without pride, gave a detailed description of results of the investigation. Nebojsa Ranisavljevic, born in Despotovac in the Republic of Serbia, with permanent residence in Visegrad, was arrested; a warrent for the arrest of Boban Indjic was issued, and incriminating evidence would be forwarded to the competent court in the Republic of Serbia, where an investigation against Milan Lukic was in progress. Nebojsa Ranisavljevic had admitted in the course of "police procedure" that "as a member of a para-military unit commanded by Milan Lukic he had participated in kidnapping of passengers at the station in Strpci". He had neither remembered how many of them there were nor what were their names. "Ranisavljevic also stated that they had driven all the passengers to Visegrad and from there to a place called Prelevo where they had taken them into the school hall where they had searched them and taken their money and valuables away which they had split among themselves. After that they took them to a deserted Muslim village on the bank of the Drina. He stated that from the truck they had been taken in groups of 5-6 persons to the place where they had been killed by firearms by Milan Lukic and Boban Indjic. According to the statement he gave, by firing from an automatic rifle, he too had killed one kidnapped passenger who had tried to escape. Having committed the crime, they left the village, and with the money taken away from the victims, Milan Lukic paid a person to throw the bodies of the killed into the Drina", it was explained in the statement of the Montenegrin Ministry of Internal Affairs. Lukic

It was also revealed how the Ministry of the interior managed to get hold of Nebojsa Ranisavljevic and how competent agencies of the Republica Srpska had not shown willingness to assist them in doing it. The police, it was said, revealed Ranisavljevic's inclination to illegal trade, and among his business partners "identified a Montenegrin citizen". The rest was pure techniques: "During takeover of smuggled goods in Montenegro, Nebojsa Ranisavljevic was arrested". Here is the most interesting detail in this part of the story: the path leading to Lukic and Ranisavljevic, the police claim, was pointed out by Dusan Petrovic who had informed back in February '95 the head of the Republican parliamentary committee for illumination of the Strpci crime, Dr Dragisa Burzan (SDP) that he was ready to voluntarily testify about the kidnapping. Burzan had in an orderly manner forwarded his message to the police - and it summoned him for interrogation only this year. What it had been doing in the meantime was not said in the statement.

A day after the public statement, the Minister of the interior, Filip Vujanovic, and state prosecutor Vlado Susovic, called the relatives of the killed men to inform them too about police revelations. "They have told us nothing that had not already been said to the public. They said that Ranisavljevic had confessed to the police how and where our children, brothers and fathers had been killed. What if later on in court he declares that he had confessed under pressure and beating and is released due to a lack of evidence. They told us that Ranisavljevic was a monster. If that is true, how can his testimony be trusted. It all resembles just an election trick of the authorities who have been killing us for four years by concealing the truth about Strpci", the crushed people kept repeating, after the meeting. At the same time they publicly asked President Bulatovic to tell them, as he had once promised, what had happened to their dear ones. A day later, Bulatovic himself sent a telegram offering his condolences. "I have personally monitored all information and was convinced that they were authentic. All available facts indicate that the kidnapped citizens of Montenegro are innocent and guiltless victims of the cruel civil war in Bosnia". In twenty homes, hope completely faded away: after Bulatovic's telegram they started receiving condolences, but they will hardly ever be reconciled with the President's findings that their dearest ones, ordinary passengers on the railway Belgrade-Bar, were victims of "the cruel civil war in Bosnia".

In the meantime, Dr Dragisa Burzan, President of the Parliamentary Committee, which had - armed only with enthusiasm - during all these years tried to take the veil off the crime in Strpci, also addressed the authorities. "Why haven't you, gentlemen from the party police, arrested that same Nebojsa Ranisavljevic three years ago when the Committee had given you his name and the names of the other kidnappers? Why are you abusing human tragedy for pre-election purposes? Why have you tried to cover the tracks of the kidnappers? Why have you set Milan Lukic free due to alleged lack of evidence and why have you sent him to Pale to be decorated there? Why is that same Liukic carefree and safe in Visegrad? Why haven't you pointed out the organizers of the kidnapping, although you, I am sure of that, know them and they are within your reach? How can main witnesses run away from the investigative detention? Why are Mister Lilic and Minister of defence silent?" Having listed all these questions, Dr Burzan demanded that all witnesses and all materials about the crime in Strpci immediately be sent to the Tribunal in the Hague.

Apart from the twenty lives, other accounts can also be settled now. Montenegrin police after almost four years managed to force its way through to the name to Milan Lukic. Relatives of the kidnappers knew about him four days after the kidnapping. Individuals from well-informed circles, under the condition to remain anonymous, told them precisely and in strict confidence who launched the operation in Strpci. The police was immediately informed about it under the title - strictly confidential. Nothing happened. In mid '93, there was official information that Lukic was tried in Belgrade, among other, for Strpci and Sjeverin. After a month, official information arrived: Milan Lukic was released because there was no evidence for the conviction that he possessed firearms. Kidnapping was not even mentioned. In the beginning of '94, Lukic was again in the strict hands of justice in Serbia. He was considered to be responsible for train no. 671 again. When it was established that there was no evidence for Strpci, Lukic was extradited to the authorities from Pale to be tried for other accomplishments. After the situation was looked into, the Serb commander from Podrinje was - decorated. This particular was revealed at the height of the quarrel with Karadzic in August '94 by the head of the FRY, Zoran Lilic. There had been about ten policemen in the arrested train - names of each and every one of them as well as of the personnel on duty at the railway station in Strpci were published in the newspapers - and President Lilic did not remember to ask while the suspected warrior was held by his authorities how come none of them had been summoned to recognize commander Lukic. And it is positively known that the kidnappers were not wearing stockings on their heads while they were singling out the victims.

In its statement, Montenegrin police somehow unintentionally failed to mention how much time had passed from the kidnapping until the killing on the Drina. Several hours, a day, two days? So much time that the Serbian President could have "turned the sky and the earth upside down". For abundant contribution to building of the new state across the Drina, President Bulatovic was also earning Karadzic's decoration of the Nemanjics at the time - maybe he too could have got mercy for his fellow citizens. One thing is certain: Slobodan Icagic, train dispatcher in Strpci, had informed the police in Uzice, traffic dispatcher at the station in Pozega and the superiors in his company about the forcible blockade of the train, before kidnapping began. Contrary to the story which was repeated so many times, railway station Strpci is in Serbia. How much time did the army which was at the border and which had helicopters and other miracles of modern techniques, need to get to the railway station and prevent the crime before the kidnappers started on their way to Visegrad - is a military secret. Testimonies of some of the passengers from the train no. 671 that immediately after departure from Belgrade national identity of the passengers was determined by means of identity cards has never been mentioned by the official version.

Montenegrin public has finally got an official police confirmation of the story: a day after the kidnapping, the authors of the information lied that in Strpci a non-selective mobilization of the Serbs and other passers-by took place. In the latest statement of the Ministry of the interior it is written: "Ranisavljevic described that they took out a group of citizens of Muslim creed, a Croat and a Negro". Perhaps some day we will be informed which state service had produced what once used to be the official truth. The police did not even give a precise answer to the question what inspired the crime in Strpci, but it indicated the direction of the operation. Everything in the statement somehow leads to the conclusion that the whole undertaking was inspired only by "collecting valuables", and that human lives were taken - just incidentally. It is interesting that Dusan Petrovic, whio was also born in Despotovac, stated in his testimony that Lukic and his former brother-in-law had talked him into "train robbery". It can just be imagined what treasures construction workers of Belgrade "Planum", "Ratko Mitrovic", Railroad Transport Company and among them sixteen-year old Senad Djecevic were taking along with them. Maybe some poeple believe the theory that a group of innate evil-doers simply felt like shedding some blood. But why would they have reached out for - to say the least - a risky operation against citizens of Serbia and Montenegro, when there had been a sufficient number of imprisoned and helpless Muslims around Podrinje?

"There are serious indicators that the kidnapping in Strpci was organized for the purpose of intimidation and eviction of the Muslims in Sandzak. There are no firm evidence, but there are various indications that the organizers of this tragedy are from this side of the Drina", Dr Dragisa Burzan explained on several occasions why the Montenegrin authorities were not doing anything to clarify the kidnapping, and were at the same time preventing the parliamentary committee to be authorized by the Assembly to take any serious action. It was the fiercely cold winter of '93. Hatred was spreading from all official addresses - it was courageous just to ask about one's closest relatives.

"During all these years", claims Rifat Rastoder in the name of the relatives, "it was more difficult to conceal the road leading to perpetrators of the crime than to find them. The relatives of the victims are afraid that Ranisavljevic will deny everything in court. We don't even know where Dusan Petrovic who has volunteered to testify and go to the Hague is now. He has declared to many of us and the president of the parliamentary committee that the Montenegrin police had started to mistreat him. For fear of liquidation he asked that his statement be recorded on tape. Afterwards he explained to Belgrade daily Telegraf how he had escaped from the investigative arrest in Podgorica. The officials here claim that they had let him go after taking his statement. This is strange because they also declared that they had raised charges against Petrovic for concealing data on the crime in Strpci. For years Lukic walked around Serbia whenever he wished, and now suddenly the authorities cannot reach him. In any case, the mystery of train no. 671 is still awaiting to be unravelled".

Strpci have moved the limits of human sorrow. For three years and eight months, twenty homes awaited to be told the truth, they were tormented by fear and hope. "It is the worst thing for me when someone asks him how many children I have", Mujo Babacic used to say when his son Ismet was taken away. Now it is certain: twenty passengers will never return. It has never been a secret who and why called their murderers warriors. Nor who and why had produced them.

Esad KOCAN

AIM Podgoricaf